This Guy's Garage - Chris Agee

This is a story about having fun with cars. This shop doesn't strike you as having a lot of character in the tradition of old gas station signs and automobilia, but the cars were so interesting we couldn't resist. On a recent trip to Jon Kaase's shop in Winder, Georgia, we visited Chris Agee's shop in nearby Loganville. Chris owns a company called Sprinkles Irrigation, and in his spare time, he builds custom Fords for customers out of his Chris Agee Resto-Racing shop. What is just out of sight from behind the '66 Fairlane is an incredibly cool, orange '67 Mustang that began as a restomod using the drivetrain from a wrecked '09 GT500 Shelby Mustang with its 500hp supercharged 5.4L engine. But then Chris decided to include the dash, and not long after, he literally swapped in nearly all of the '09 floorpan, the entire interior, the dash, and the uncut wiring harness. The only non-'09 drivetrain piece was a 9-inch rearend out of the late-model Cobra Jet race cars that included the trigger wheels for the fully functional four-wheel disc brakes and ABS. "One of the hardest parts," Chris says, “was adapting the late-model windshield wipers into the stock cowl. That took some time." Perhaps even more amazing was that Chris and his team converted the Mustang in roughly six months. We would also be remiss if we didn't mention Chris' pair of 8-second Mustang Cobra Jet drag race cars. Right now, the remaining cars in the shop deserve their own moments in the sun.

1. Chris calls this car the "Ultimate Moonshiner," a '57 Ford Business sedan. He built the car for customer Donald Camp, and from the outside, it screams near-stock, but lift the hood and your eyes meet the individual stacks that are bolted to a 557ci Kaase Boss motor backed by a six-speed manual trans. Chris included a set of moonshine bottles filled with clear liquid that's probably flammable just to complete the image. Chris says the car was originally a six-cylinder, three-speed West Coast car in really good condition but now sports an even more refined pedigree. They finished the car just in time for the Mountain Moonshine Festival in Dawsonville, Georgia, in 2013. That sounds like a fun event—even if you don't do any illicit sipping.

2. If you want to talk rare, highly collectible Mustangs, look no further than this all-original ragtop '68 Shelby GT500KR car. The early model GT 500 Shelbys were powered by 428 Police Interceptor engines, but approximately mid-year, Shelby introduced the GT500KR powered by the now-famous Cobra Jet 428. Ken Yeager owns this car.

3. This '71 Boss 351 is an original, matching-numbers, four-speed, Cleveland-powered car that is about to receive a light restoration.

4. This is Chris' personal '70 Mustang Boss re-creation, complete with a 521ci Kaase Boss powerplant, this time fed with a carburetor. He started with a very clean Mustang and updated it with A/C, a Tremec five-speed, a 4.11:1 geared 9-inch, "and about 100 pounds of DynaMat insulation."

5. Amid this collection of rare muscle and outrageous conversions is this simple '68 notchback cruiser. Chris says “this car was originally purchased by the father, and his son brought it to us for final assembly. It's a great little cruiser that's already won awards at a couple local shows.” The Mustang is powered by a 302 and a C4 automatic.

6. The '66 Fairlane is also a Donald Camp car built for his son. It's more of a restomod with a 347ci stroker FAST EFI small-block Ford churning a TKO five-speed and a 3.73:1 in a 9-inch rearend. They've upgraded the brakes and also integrated the power steering to get rid of Ford's troublesome power-assist cylinder. Chris says of the custom hue, "I have no idea what color it is."